


My Last Words

by CourageousJS



Category: Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M, jamie x claire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:55:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28841982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CourageousJS/pseuds/CourageousJS
Summary: in the year 1800, Jamie returns to the stones to create the loop that ensures Claire is brought back to him and their lives together can happen.
Relationships: Claire Beauchamp & Faith Fraser, Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser
Comments: 45
Kudos: 122





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> “When the day shall come that we do part,” he said softly, and turned to look at me, “if my last words are not ‘I love you’ -ye’ll ken it was because I didna have time.” 
> 
> -The Fiery Cross 
> 
> Many thanks to crossworddreamer, jamiemackenziefraser and icanbeurbestbet for letting me run this by you all :)

May 1, 1801

Just outside of Inverness, Scotland

The old man trundled up the tall grasses and onto the long path up the hill to the stones. It was his birthday, his 80th to be exact. Time and age had warped his stride from that of a young man, sure and steady, to that of a bumbling old coot. He must’ve cut a figure on the moor. A lone, Regency carriage rode past on the toll road and paid him no mind as he clutched a small wooden box tightly in his gnarled hands. The many years and lifetimes he had lived through were testament to his very being, he knew he didn’t have much more time left to complete his mission. 

It had been years since his heart had started to give him trouble and without his doctor…. _ his  _ doctor…. It had been an inside joke of no mirth to the man since 1800 when for all accounts, his own heart’s blood had stopped cold, as cold as the stone she lay under in the little churchyard in Paris near L'Hôpital des Anges. 

Tears brimmed in his cat-like blue eyes at the thought, the new headstone lain besides the small round one, worn with time and decades. He hoped she would have approved of the spot near the old willow in the shadow of the abbey she had once worked at. His two girls together at last. Only a short stroll away, lay his wife’s mentor, Mother Hildegarde. 

His wife’s passing had been a quiet one, in her old age, Claire had wanted nothing more than to return to Paris to see Faith’s grave one more. In spite of his seasickness and age, they made the trip. Claire had bent her frail body down to kiss the small headstone and together they prayed and held each other on top of the grave of their infant daughter. He remembered the peaceful look on her face as they went to stay at an old friend’s daughter’s residence. Louise’s adult child was more than accommodating to the pair of them. 

The next morning, Jamie awoke to see Claire unmoving and pale in her sleep, her cold hand intertwined with his and a small smile on her face. She was gone. His heart had broken that day and never put itself back together, the ache never left and had turned into a condition that no one could diagnose other than to shake their head and murmur to friends and family alike that there was nothing to be done. 

Upon his final checkup, Jamie had gone to the chemist for a small wooden box and not his usual medication. Then, to a small nursery on the shores of France. From there, the precious box contained a treasure too precious to speak of. He had hoped beyond hope it was the right kind. Bracing himself for another journey, he had crossed the channel back to Scotland and, more than once, wished he died on the trip. But he couldn’t. Not yet. His little box carried something far more precious than his own life. He had made a vow to find her and find her he would. Some hundred and forty-five years from now. 

The day was as Jamie Fraser sat down alone in the middle of the stones. He was reminded of the day he brought her there, and left her. To walk alone down the path to the little camp at the bottom of the hill, to think he would never again see his beloved dove. A shaking breath stole through him as he also thought of Culloden, of their lingering kiss, of dancing her backwards through the stones with their babe in between them. One he would never get to see, just like the other. 

He found the spot she had spoken of, just by the center stone. Taking a small rock out from his pocket, Jamie groaned with effort as his heart pained him anew. He dug, inch by inch uprooting the grass in the spot he had heard mention of all those years ago. As he worked, he prayed. 

_ Dear God, let it work. Let the years be kind to this little spot. Let the weather be favorable. Let it grow, let it last.  _

He tenderly patted the soil in around the tiny blue flowers, forget-me-nots, and used the last few drops of the water in his flask to dampen the soil. He would not need the rest for himself. 

Groaning suddenly, he clutched his chest and a lone tear fell from his blue eyes and into the dirt beside him. No one was around for miles. Overheard a blue heron flew, over and away to the moor behind him. The blue rush of feathers was the only noise around. 

And then he heard it. 

The buzzing. 

Like a million bees coming from a distant hive, he heard what had only been described to him by Claire. Through tears, through begging him to hear it. What was silence was now a deafening roar beckoning him further. With a crack, the great stone split down the center and Jamie leaned his back into it expecting to feel the hard, cold sturdiness of the boulder behind him. 

“I love you.” 

He whispered his last words, the exhale from his lips touching the tiny blue flowers he had transplanted. He felt the stiffness of the rock behind him for a moment, but only for a moment. 

In another, he felt as though he were falling off a great cliff at a lightning speed, the whirling in his head blocked out only by the deafening roar of buzzing in his ears. 

And then he was in the dark with nothing discernable around him. There was no noise, no light. He didn’t know it then but with his final words he sealed his own fate. God would grant him his one wish after his dues were paid in full. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I will find you," he whispered in my ear. "I promise. If I must endure two hundred years of purgatory, two hundred years without you - then that is my punishment, which I have earned for my crimes. For I have lied, and killed, and stolen; betrayed and broken trust. But there is the one thing that shall lie in the balance. When I shall stand before God, I shall have one thing to say, to weigh against the rest."
> 
> His voice dropped, nearly to a whisper, and his arms tightened around me.
> 
> Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well.”
> 
> -Dragonfly in Amber

Purgatory 

James Fraser had no idea what that term meant before his soul had to endure the wait. 

The dark. 

The lukewarm cool of a never-ending mist. 

It wasn’t a place, but a state of being. 

A presence. 

A not-gone-yet, but a not-quite-here aspect of the soul that up till now only poets had touched with golden quills dipped in the ink of tears and bitterness. 

He may as well have been a hundred thousand miles from his love and yet-

He was closer than a heartbeat. 

He watched her life in pictures like he used to watch her dream. The white mist was lit from within with voices, thoughts and images from his life with Claire. 

He stood transfixed and naked in the space that never changed. Clothed only in a shroud of whispers and memories and regrets. Slowly, over the decades and centuries, each thought spun itself into a thread that was woven into a cloth that got thicker and thicker with the passing of each age. 

As he was knit together in his mother’s womb, so was he knit together into a reality. A specter that would be able to walk once more. But not yet. No, not yet. 

He felt her go on without him like he used to watch her breathe. Signs of Claire were all around him. 

A sigh. 

A hushed tone on the wind. 

A carried lullaby. 

All at once, the gray mist started to dissipate. All at once, it was enough. 

A pain he had never known ripped through his very soul and in a moment, it was gone. He was leaning against a building, it was night. The harvest rain had fallen damp and heavy upon the cobblestone of the streets. He vaguely thought it resembled somewhere familiar, but couldn’t place it. 

Could she be here? 

If it had worked, she would be. 

“I kept my promise, Sassenach,” He cried in a voice that had not been used for over a century.

Jamie looked down at his hands as was stunned to find they were young again, not the gnarled, wrinkled mitts he had grown accustomed to in his age, but the young, tough hands of a man who was used to hard labor. A warrior. 

He smiled, he was in no pain. 

He turned around and felt the familiar swish of the Fraser tartan around his waist, his hand found his old dirk once more and he kissed the ring on his hand belonging to Brian Fraser. He took in a giant breath of air, looking skyward he saw the center of the square and the odd buzz of the lamplights around him were not candles. He took a step into the rain and pulled his wool cap down over half of his face to protect against the downpour. 

Walking out into the square, he turned and what he saw nearly took his breath away. 

There, in the corner house, an upstairs window was lit from within. The candlelight flickered against a pink nightgown and a young woman whose brown hair was all undone in a giant tangle as she stood in the looking glass, attempting in vain to tame the mess before her. Slamming the brush down, he saw her lips move as he had a hundred times before mouthing the words with her this time,

“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ.”

He laughed. 

Some things never change. 

Tears of joy sprang into his eyes as he saw her well and without trouble with his young gaze new again. 

He watched her, tears mingling with the rain, his hand out to steady himself on the statue in the center of the square next to him as he gazed up at her window. 

He said only one word, the one that had been on his lips for centuries in the dark. 

“Claire.” 

**Author's Note:**

> “I will find you," he whispered in my ear. "I promise. If I must endure two hundred years of purgatory, two hundred years without you - then that is my punishment, which I have earned for my crimes. For I have lied, and killed, and stolen; betrayed and broken trust. But there is the one thing that shall lie in the balance. When I shall stand before God, I shall have one thing to say, to weigh against the rest."
> 
> His voice dropped, nearly to a whisper, and his arms tightened around me.
> 
> Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well.”
> 
> -Dragonfly in Amber 
> 
> Stay tuned for part 2!!!


End file.
